From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

Lindsey Williams Online | Promote your Page too

Latest News From January 20, 2017 to January 26, 2017:

Michael Snyder: 25 Things I Think That I Think About The Future Of America

Is there hope for the future of America? Following the election of Donald Trump, such a question often evokes some extremely strong emotions from people. And even more surprising, it can turn people that are supposedly on the same side viciously against one another. Because of what I do, I spend an enormous amount of time on the Internet, and it greatly saddens me when I see people that should be working together attacking each other instead. No matter what your perspective may be, and no matter how right you think you are, the truth is that this nation is not going to have any hope for the future unless we start to learn how to love one another.

The Government will bring a Bill to Parliament to start the legal Brexit process “within days”, after the Supreme Court ruled against Theresa May’s plans and decreed that MPs were entitled to vote on whether to trigger Article 50. Sources within the Conservative Party told The Independent legislation could be published by Friday and the initial stages potentially put to a vote by Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Brexit Secretary Mr Davis told the Commons: “I can announce today that we will shortly introduce legislation allowing the Government to move ahead with invoking Article 50, which starts the formal process of withdrawing the European Union.”

Employment Boom: 10 Companies That Have Promised To Add Jobs In The United States Since Trump Was Elected

One of the primary things that Trump’s presidency will be judged upon is his ability to encourage the creation of good paying jobs for American workers, and so far the results have been quite promising. Since Trump’s surprise election victory in November, a whole bunch of companies have either promised to bring jobs back into the country or have pledged to create new ones. Ultimately time will tell if those jobs actually materialize, but for the moment there is a tremendous amount of optimism in the air. In fact, I don’t know if we have ever seen anything quite like this at the beginning of a new presidency. The following are 10 companies that have promised to add jobs in the United States since the election of Donald Trump…

CDC cancels upcoming climate conference, won’t say why

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has canceled a conference on climate change that was scheduled to be held next month in Atlanta, Ga. The government’s top public health agency gave no official reason for the cancellation, but some involved with the conference have suggested that the cancellation may be an attempt to avoid political friction with President Trump’s new administration. While there is a consensus among most scientists that humans have a leading role in climate change, Mr. Trump has called the phenomenon a hoax on more than one occasion.

Foreigners Are Dumping U.S. Debt At A Record Pace And Our $20 Trillion National Debt Is Poised To Become A Major Crisis

While most of the country has been focused on the inauguration of Donald Trump, a very real crisis has been brewing behind the scenes. Foreigners are dumping U.S. debt at a faster rate than we have ever seen before, and U.S. Treasury yields have been rising. This is potentially a massive problem, because our entire debt-fueled standard of living is dependent on foreigners lending us gigantic mountains of money at ultra-low interest rates. If the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt just got back to 5 percent, which would still be below the long-term average, we would be paying out about a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt. If foreigners keep dumping our debt and if Treasury yields keep climbing, a major financial implosion of historic proportions is absolutely guaranteed within the next four years.

RIP TPP: ‘Obama kept Americans in dark on major trade deal’

We don’t know a lot about it, but Obama pushed it as “the most progressive trade deal in US history,” publisher of Trends Journal Gerald Celente told RT. RT America’s Ed Shultz, and Jack Rasmus, Professor of Political Economy, also provided comments. US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. TPP is a free trade agreement between America and the Asia Pacific region. It was due to cover 800 million people and encompass 40 percent of the global economy. However, the proposed agreement, much of which was negotiated in secret behind closed doors, was met with tremendous public resistance in several countries.

Clinton Charity is Massive Global Swamp

Wall Street financial analyst Charles Ortel has applied the same research skills he does to see if a company has sound solvent accounting to the Clinton charity machine. Ortel has called the Clintons the “Bonnie and Clyde” of charity fraud. What does Ortel say now that the Clintons are shutting down there so-called global charity? Ortel contends, “The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) was a fraud from the very beginning. It started in September of 2005 as an interesting idea that you would convene around the time of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. You would convene world leaders, former government officials, investors, corporate officers and members of the media in closed sessions where you would talk about high sounding topics, and noble people would stand up on stage and say how much good they were going to do under the guise of charity. The trouble with that is . . . the CGI was an activity so distinct and so different than the main authorized activity of being a library and being a presidential archive based in Little Rock that it should have sought approval from the IRS . . . and it never did that.”

Keystone XL Still Faces Obstacles Even With Trump’s Approval

President Donald Trump moved to fulfill one of his campaign promises on Tuesday, signing an executive order to revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines. The former had been rejected outright by the Obama administration while the latter had been given an indefinite delay. The industry hailed the executive order, but just because President Trump wants to see the pipeline built does not mean TransCanada will move to break ground anytime soon. There are a number of uncertainties that could prevent construction from progressing.

Why Trump Will Be Blamed For Coming Economic Collapse!

Long before Wikileaks let the cat out of the bag about the level of corruption and the amount of collusion between the highest levels of the mainstream media and the Democrat party, earlier in the year a poll revealed that only six percent of Americans said they had “a great deal of confidence” in the mainstream media. What percentage have confidence now? Zero? After the election, the mainstream media had a choice to make. They could either recognize that the American people were tired of being lied to by both a dishonest media and corrupt Washington politicians, or they could double down on their lies and deceit. Sadly, they chose the latter.

Henry Kissinger advice to President Trump – Davos 2017 – A Conversation with Henry Kissinger on the World in 2017.

Henry Kissinger advice to President Trump – Davos 2017 – A Conversation with Henry Kissinger on the World in 2017.

President Trump on Wednesday signed directives to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and crack down on U.S. cities that shield illegal immigrants, proceeding quickly on sweeping and divisive plans to curb immigration and boost national security. As Reuters summarized, the Republican president is also expected to take steps in the coming days to limit legal immigration, including executive orders restricting refugees and blocking the issuing of visas to people from several Muslim-majority Middle Eastern and North African countries including Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen.

Bill introduced to remove US from United Nations

A proposed House Resolution would set the stage for the United States to remove itself from the United Nations. The proposed “American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017” is sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL). It was introduced in the House on Jan. 3 and referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, according to the Congress website. The bill proposes that the United States terminate its membership in the UN, that the UN removes its headquarters from the US, and that the US stops participating in the World Health Organization. Should it pass, the act would take effect two years after it is signed.

China’s Newest Problem With Fakes Threatens Bond Market Pain

Forged seals, fake letters, and counterfeit documents. They’re all part of China’s recent spate of fraud coming to light in the country’s $3 trillion corporate debt market amid a rout that has analysts predicting a record number of defaults in 2017. As it becomes harder for Chinese companies to issue new notes to repay maturing debt, expect more scandals to come — and to worsen the bond market’s already-precipitous downturn.

Trump Formally Invokes U.S. WITHDRAWAL from the Trans-Pacific Partnership – Then Declares Re-Negotiation of NAFTA!

Less than one day after being sworn-in as President, Donald Trump has formally invoked the withdrawal by the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and has also formally invoked Renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a trade pact championed by former President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Hours After The Inauguration, The Surprising Truth About Mike Pence Is Exposed

It’s fair to say that until recently, most Americans had never heard of “Mike Pence.” But ironically, this relatively unknown man will soon take the second-highest office in the country. Today he’s mostly known for being President-Elect Donald Trump’s sidekick, but truth be told, there’s a side of Mike Pence that many haven’t seen. When I learned more about Mike Pence, my respect and admiration for America’s Vice President-Elect only grew all the more.

Dow Jones finishes above 20,000 milestone for first time

Wall Street stock markets hit a fresh record on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending above 20,000 points for the first time. The S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq also achieved new highs, fuelled by hopes that President Donald Trump’s policies will boost the US economy. The Dow, which has nudged the 20,000 milestone during January, rose 0.8% to 20,068.51. Investors’ cash has poured into shares on hopes of tax cuts and higher growth.

Donald Trump’s entire CIA speech

President Donald Trump gave remarks at CIA headquarters a day after being sworn-in as the 45th president.

That didn’t take long. Earlier this week we reported that after 19 straight months of continued acceleration in home prices, China’s latest housing bubble may have finally burst (again) after December prices in the 70 cities tracked by the NBS, rose by 12.7%, below the 12.9% annual growth rate in the previous month – the first annual decline in nearly 2 years.

Following German media’s outcry that “the demons have been unchained”, Asian media decried President Trump’s isolationist policies, fearing they will chill the global economy and sow widespread international discord, as “the reality show has become reality,” warning the world was now in “unpredictable territory… spreading unease, division, and conflict throughout the world.” While perhaps not as entirely hysterical as German media’s ‘opinion’…

Billionaire George Soros has ties to more than 50 ‘partners’ of the Women’s March on Washington

In the pre-dawn darkness of today’s presidential inauguration day, I faced a choice, as a lifelong liberal feminist who voted for Donald Trump for president: lace up my pink Nike sneakers to step forward and take the DC Metro into the nation’s capital for the inauguration of America’s new president, or wait and go tomorrow to the after-party, dubbed the “Women’s March on Washington”? The Guardian has touted the “Women’s March on Washington” as a “spontaneous” action for women’s rights. Another liberal media outlet, Vox, talks about the “huge, spontaneous groundswell” behind the march. On its website, organizers of the march are promoting their work as “a grassroots effort” with “independent” organizers. Even my local yoga studio, Beloved Yoga, is renting a bus and offering seats for $35. The march’s manifesto says magnificently, “The Rise of the Woman = The Rise of the Nation.”

Trump Fires Up Europe’s Anti-Establishment Movement

Inspired by the inauguration of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, the leaders of Europe’s main anti-establishment parties have held a pan-European rally aimed at coordinating a political strategy to mobilize potentially millions of disillusioned voters in upcoming elections in Germany, the Netherlands and France. Appearing together in public for the first time, Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front, Frauke Petry, leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s Northern League and Harald Vilimsky of Austria’s Freedom Party gathered on January 21 at a rally in Koblenz, Germany, where they called on European voters to participate in a “patriotic spring” to topple the European Union, reassert national sovereignty and secure national borders.

Trump may not enforce individual health insurance mandate: aide

The Trump administration may no longer enforce a rule requiring individual Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty if they do not, a senior White House official said on Sunday Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” program, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said President Donald Trump “may stop enforcing the individual mandate.” Separately, on CBS’ “Face the Nation” show, she reiterated Republican promises that no one would lose their health insurance under Obamacare while a replacement is being developed. “For the 20 million who rely upon the Affordable Care Act in some form, they will not be without coverage during this transition time,” she said.

The Collapse Of The Left’s Great Con

The Left is not just in disarray- – it is in complete collapse because the working class has awakened to the Left’s betrayal and abandonment of the working class in favor of building personal wealth and power. The source of the angry angst rippling through the Democratic Party’s progressive camp is not President Trump–it’s the complete collapse of the Left globally. To understand this collapse, we turn (once again) to Marx’s profound understanding of the state and capitalism. We turn not to the cultural Marxism that is passingly familiar to Americans, but to Marx’s core economic analysis, which as Sartre noted, is only taught to discredit it.

A few days after Christmas, Mark Zuckerberg shared a series of photographs of his family at their $100m, 700-acre property in Kauai. The Facebook CEO and his wife “fell in love with the community and the cloudy green mountains”, he wrote, and decided to “plant roots and join the community ourselves”. Two days later, Zuckerberg’s lawyers filed lawsuits against hundreds of Hawaiians who may own an interest in small parcels within the boundaries of Zuckerberg’s estate. The “quiet title” suits, first reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, are used to clarify the often complicated history of land ownership in Hawaii and can result in owners being forced to sell their land at auction. In some cases, defendants are even required to pay the legal fees of the plaintiff – in this case, the world’s fifth richest man.

By prophylactic vaccination of adults and especially children against measles, the pharmaceutical industry has earned Billions over a 40-year period. The judges at the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) confirmed in a recent ruling that measles virus do not exist though. Furthermore: There is not a single scientific study in the world which could prove the existence of such virus so far. This raises the question of what was actually injected into millions of German citizens over the past decades. According to the judgment by the Supreme Court, it may not have been a vaccine against measles.

It’s Official: Clinton’s Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California

Democrats who are having trouble getting out of the first stage of grief — denial — aren’t being helped by the fact that, now that all the votes are counted, Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote has topped 2.8 million, giving her a 48% share of the vote compared with Trumps 46%. To those unschooled in how the United States selects presidents, this seems totally unfair. But look more closely at the numbers and you see that Clinton’s advantage all but disappears. As we noted in this space earlier, while Clinton’s overall margin looks large and impressive, it is due to Clinton’s huge margin of victory in one state — California — where she got a whopping 4.3 million more votes than Trump.

DONALD Trump has withdrawn the USA from the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement just days after coming into power – leaving Eurocrats fearing TTIP could be next. In an Oval Office ceremony, Mr Trump called the order a “great thing for the American worker.” The move will now raise fears in Brussels the TTIP deal, promoting cross-Atlantic trade with the EU, could also be under threat. The TPP agreement was a huge part of former president Barack Obama’s eight-year term, with the long-negotiated deal covering 40 per cent of the world economy.

Trump withdraws from Trans-Pacific Partnership amid flurry of orders

Donald Trump has begun his effort to dismantle Barack Obama’s legacy, formally scrapping a flagship trade deal with 11 countries in the Pacific rim. The new president also signed executive orders to ban funding for international groups that provide abortions, and placing a hiring freeze on non-military federal workers. Trump’s decision not to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) came as little surprise. During his election campaign he railed against international trade deals, blaming them for job losses and focusing anger in the industrial heartland. Obama had argued that this deal would provide an effective counterweight to China in the region.

Trump plan calls for nationwide concealed carry and an end to gun bans

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump — who said he has a concealed carry permit — called for the expansion of gun rights Friday, including making those permits applicable nationwide. In a position paper published on his website Friday afternoon, Trump called for the elimination of gun and magazine bans, labeling them a “total failure.” “Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice. The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own,” Trump wrote.

Trump And A New Gold-Backed Dollar

On August 15, 1971, President Nixon killed the last remnants of the gold standard. Since then, the dollar has been a pure fiat currency, allowing the Fed to print as many dollars as it pleases. Removing the US dollar’s last link to gold eliminated the main motivation for foreign countries to store large dollar reserves and to use the dollar for international trade. At this point, demand for dollars was set to fall… along with the dollar’s purchasing power. So the US government concocted a new arrangement to give foreign countries another compelling reason to hold and use the dollar.

Less than six months ago we celebrated the forty-five year anniversary of the final death of the gold standard in August of 1971. President Nixon abandoned the restrictive link to gold so the U.S. could print unlimited dollars whenever it wished. He was able to get away with this because of a substitute America concocted to maintain strong demand for U.S. dollars. They called this the “petrodollar system.” The Federal government entered into a consecutive series of special agreements with Saudi Arabia from 1972 to 1974. This arrangement ensured the Saudis would enforce a new rule for all oil trades. They would all be transacted in American dollars.

Pope warns against Hitler-like leaders coming to power on wave of populism

Pope Francis warned against populist leaders, saying that Germany came to elect one in 1933, and ended up with Adolf Hitler as its dictator. “Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most common example of European populism is Germany in 1933… A people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened,” he said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais. “Hitler did not steal power,” the Pope said. “He was elected by his people and then he destroyed his people.”

Minimum Wage Hikes Will Help Amazon Kill Millions Of Traditional Sales Jobs Sooner Than Later

In a few years, local communities in America will be totally different places. There will be very few iconic retail chain stores, or sales people behind counters and on the shopping floor. Automated Amazon Go stores and remote warehouses will replace most local retail stores, killing millions of sales jobs, and bring further losses to investors in these icons. And making this transformation happen sooner rather than later? Minimum wage hikes. For years, American retail icons like Macy’s, JCP, and Wal-Mart colored the lives of local communities, providing sales jobs for millions of people. Then came on-line retailer Amazon to crush these icons, as evidenced by their sluggish sales, falling margins, and equity price performance.

Canadian Urban Farmer Grows 50,000 Lbs Of Food On Less Than 1 Acre Of Land

“What if I told you that there was a way you could live off the land, farm commercially, be a direct solution to food security, economic inequality, and environmental degradation, build community ties and social capital, and make a living out of it?”, says urban farmer Curtis Stone, CEO of Green City Acres. Green City Acres grows vegetables on donated plots of land throughout Kelowna, B.C., and transports them to consumers using only bicycles and custom-built trailers. In 2012, they grew over 50,000 lbs of food on less than 1 acre of land, using organic methods and only 80 litres of gasoline (used to run a rototiller).

A Major Prophetic Sign Appeared The Moment Donald Trump Stepped To The Inauguration Platform

It was one of those magical moments that you will never forget. The inauguration of Donald Trump was being watched live by tens of millions of people all over the world, and it was at that precise moment that God gave all of us another little reminder that He is in control. It had not been raining prior to the time that Trump stepped up to the Inauguration platform, but when he did, the rain began to fall. Considering everything else that was going on at the time, it would have been really easy to miss that little detail, but fortunately there was someone there that perfectly understood what was happening.

The Rise Of Satanism

Interest in Satan and Satanism has experienced a tremendous resurgence in recent years. At one time, Satanists were generally feared and shunned by society, but now Satanism is steadily being accepted into mainstream culture. Up until recently, the Church of Satan that was founded by Anton LaVey in 1966 was the most prominent Satanic organization in the world, but now it is rapidly being overtaken by a relatively new group known as the Satanic Temple. It is headquartered in Salem, Massachusetts and was founded in 2013 to combat the influence of evangelical Christianity in politics. It has grown explosively over the past several years, and at this point the organization’s leadership claims that it has a global membership of somewhere around 100,000.

It’s Finally Morning Again In America, And A New Day For Our Country Starts NOW

For the first time in decades, it feels like morning in America again. I was quite young when Ronald Reagan was president, and I only have vague memories from those days. But I do remember the extraordinary optimism that his leadership inspired, and my hope is that Donald Trump’s leadership will be just as inspirational. For such a very long time, it has seemed as though a giant dark cloud has been hanging over America, but now a new day is starting. If Donald Trump can be president of the United States, it seems like just about anything can be possible. And even though our nation is facing incredibly serious challenges, could it be possible that we can find a way to turn things around if we all work together?

The End Of The Obama World Order

For the past eight years, Barack Obama has been using the power of the U.S. presidency to impose his vision of a progressive world order on the entire globe. As a result, much of the planet will greatly celebrate once the Obama era officially ends on Friday. The Obama years brought us the Arab Spring, Benghazi, ISIS, civil war in Syria, civil war in Ukraine and the Iran nuclear deal. On the home front, we have had to deal with Obamacare, “Fast and Furious”, IRS targeting of conservative groups, Solyndra, the VA scandal, NSA spying and the worst “economic recovery” since the end of World War II. And right at the end of his presidency, Barack Obama has committed the greatest betrayal of Israel in U.S. history and has brought us dangerously close to war with Russia. So is the end of the Obama world order worth celebrating? You better believe it is.

The changes Donald Trump has already made since he was sworn in as President

President Donald Trump promised a lot would happen on “day one” during his election campaign – although he later clarified he meant on his first Monday in office, rather than today. Apparently keen to get down to business, the billionaire tycoon went to the Oval Office immediately after yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony but before the inauguration ball. The first order he signed related to Obamacare – which he has pledged to repeal. The President signed an order to federal departments to “minimise the economic impact” of the Affordable Care Act, which grants health insurance to all Americans.

What Trump Could Do

Today Donald Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States. American voters rejected the devil they know so well — Hillary Clinton — for the devil they don’t. Why they did so, and how Trump prevailed, is the biggest political story of our age. But the rejection of progressive hubris, what Friedrich Hayek called the “fatal conceit” of those who would presume to plan our lives, is at the heart of that story. The Left views Trump’s election as an absolute calamity, despite his support for unions and protectionist trade policies, despite his identity as a New York elite rather than some despised red state politician, and despite his ambivalence toward the social issues that animate Christian conservatives. One would think Democrats would be relieved not to suffer an ideologue like Santorum or Cruz in the White House. Yet their hysteria and lack of self-awareness prompt them to attack the Electoral College, of all things.

How Deutsche Bank Made a $462 Million Loss Disappear

On Dec. 1, 2008, most of the world’s banks were still panicking through the financial crisis. Lehman Brothers had collapsed. Merrill Lynch had been sold. Citigroup and others had required multibillion-dollar bailouts to survive. But not every institution appeared to be in free fall. That afternoon, at the London outpost of Deutsche Bank, the stolid-seeming, €2 trillion German powerhouse, a group of financiers met to consider a proposal from a team led by a trim, 40-year-old banker named Michele Faissola. The scion of an Italian banking family, Faissola was the head of Deutsche’s global rates unit, a division that created and sold financial instruments tied to interest rates. He’d been studying the problems of one of Deutsche’s clients, Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which, as the crisis raged, was down €367 million ($462 million at the time) on a single investment. Losing that much money was bad; having to include it in the bank’s yearend report to the public, as required by Italian law, was arguably much worse. Monte dei Paschi was the world’s oldest bank. It had been operating since 1472, not long after the invention of the printing press, when the Black Death was still a living memory. If investors were to find out the extent of its losses in the 2008 credit crisis, the consequences would be unpredictable and grave: a run on the bank, a government takeover, or worse. At the Deutsche meeting, Faissola’s team said it had come up with a miraculous solution: a new trade that would make Paschi’s loss disappear.

In the sappiest of sappy interviews, outgoing vice president Joe Biden looks back, and forward. ‘I Wish to Hell I’d Just Kept Saying the Exact Same Thing’ says Biden in a New York Times interview. The title is cryptic but it pertains to a speech Biden gave in July that he wishes he repeated more often instead of attacking Trump.

After several months of slowing price growth across China’s housing market, if mostly in the lower-tiered cities, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that average mothly property prices growth in December continued to slow from November across the 70 cities tracked by the NBS, and this time impacted even the formerly untouchable, “Tier 1” cities. Housing prices in the primary market increased 0.4% month-over-month after seasonal adjustment (weighted by population) in December, lower than the growth rate in November. Out of 70 cities monitored, 61 saw housing prices increase in December from the previous month, the same number as November.

China Central Bank Injects A Record 1.035 Trillion In Bank Liquidity This Week

Heading into the Chinese Lunar New Year, local banks are suddenly starved for liquidity like never before. On Tuesday China’s benchmark money-market rate jumped the most in two years, with unprecedented cash injections by the central bank being overwhelmed by demand before the Lunar New Year holidays. Demand for cash in China tends to increase before the Lunar New Year holidays, when households withdraw money to pay for gifts and get-togethers. Month-end corporate tax payments are adding to the pressure this time, with the break running from Jan. 27 through Feb. 2. At that point the PBOC usually steps in with liquidity “injections” in the form of reverse repos. However, what it has done this year is literally off the charts.

Chinese Province Admits It Fabricated Economic Data For Three Years

While it will hardly come as a surprise to China watchers who have for years mocked China’s cooked “data”, overnight the state-run People’s Daily reported that the severely impacted by the commodity crunch of the past 2 years rust-belt province of Liaoning fabricated fiscal numbers from 2011 to 2014, raising fresh doubts about the accuracy of China’s economic data just two days ahead of the release of China’s GDP report. City and county governments in the northwestern region committed fiscal data fraud in the period, Governor Chen Qiufa said at a meeting with provincial lawmakers Tuesday, Bloomberg adds. Not surprisingly, the fabricated economic data was meant to show a state of economic strenght with fiscal revenues inflated by at least 20%, and some other economic data were also false, the paper said, without specifying categories.

Oxfam’s Hypocrisy on Private Wealth

Earlier this week, the Oxfam organization published a “report” about global inequality. It’s not really a report, since most of it consists of babble-economics with little empirical foundation, and the hard data that it includes comes from an external source: the Credit Suisse Report. In any case, this data indicates that there is a lot of poverty in the world, whereas in some other places there is relatively much more wealth. This has led to loudly shouted statements in the media of how 8 people in the world have more wealth than half of the world population combined.

Inequality Doesn’t Create Poverty

Oxfam, the leftwing NGO devoted to poverty relief has released a new report blaming poverty in wealth inequality. In other words, its central claim is that the existence of very wealthy people creates poverty. The report is largely just an extended op-ed that asserts that the existence of some very wealthy people is the cause of poverty in the world. Notable buzzwords and phrases include “trickle down,” “obscene levels of inequality,” and “neoliberalism.” The “solution” to the alleged problem, which should surprise no one, is a list of taxes that should be either introduced or raised significantly, including higher income taxes, “a tax on financial transactions,” a “global wealth tax,” and a so-called “anonymous wealth tax.”

Chinese foreign investments hit record high in 2016

China’s foreign direct investments last year hit a record $189 billion dollars, a report released this week showed. According to the study done by the German Mercatur Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and Rhodium Group, China’s investments abroad rose an overall 40 per cent, with money going to the European Union amounting to $37.1 billion – 77 per cent more than in 2015. Chinese investors looked to pour funds towards acquiring advanced manufacturing equipment and technology.

Trump Deficits Will Be Huge

There is much we don’t know about how the Trump presidency will play out. Will the Wall get built? Who will pay for it? Will it have at least some fencing? Will repeal and replace happen at exactly the same time? Will Trump throw a ceremonial switch? Will there be a Trump National Golf Course in Sochi? It’s anyone’s guess. But of one thing we can be fairly certain. President Trump is very likely to preside over the largest expansion of Federal budget deficits in our history. Trump has built his companies with debt and I’m sure he thinks he can do the same with the country. His annual budget deficits are likely going to be huge. This development will make a greater impact on the investment landscape than most on Wall Street can imagine. In the past half-century, Republican presidents have been the going away winners at the deficit derby, a fact that should make any true conservative blush. The sad truth is that annual deficits exploded under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and generally contracted under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Some of the explanation is just luck of the draw, some walked into office in the midst of recessions they didn’t create. But the better part of the explanation is baked into the political dynamics.

Pension Funds Need Gold before It’s Too Late

Tens of millions of Americans and their employers pour money into pension plans each month, counting on those funds to grow and to be there when needed at retirement. But a time bomb awaits. The bulk of U.S. pension funds are dangerously underfunded, and the assets are often invested in securities that have bleak prospects for providing income that keeps up with a general decline in purchasing power. A pension plan requires an employer to make contributions into a pool of funds set aside for a worker’s future benefit. In 1875, when the American Express Company established the first private pension plan in the United States, the face of retirement was fundamentally changed. Before that time, private-sector pension plans did not exist, as most employers were small “mom-and-pop” businesses.

US Financial Markets – Alarm Bells are Ringing

When discussing the outlook for so-called “risk assets”, i.e., mainly stocks and corporate bonds (particularly low-grade bonds) and their counterparts on the “safe haven” end of the spectrum (such as gold and government bonds with strong ratings), one has to consider different time frames and the indicators applicable to these time frames. Since Donald Trump’s election victory, there have been sizable moves in stocks, gold and treasury bonds, as the election result has strongly boosted certain market expectations.

Red Flags Over Goldman Sachs

Just to prove that I am an even-handed insulter, here is a rant about my former employer, Goldman Sachs. The scandal at 1MDB, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund from which it appears that billions were stolen by politicians all the way up to the Prime Minister, continues to unfold.

Xi: Global growth requires cooperation, joint governance

Don’t pursue your own interests at the expense of others, Chinese President Xi Jinping told world leaders and delegates at the Davos World Economic Forum on Tuesday in staunch support of multilateralism and globalization. Xi’s participation at Davos is the first such visit by a Chinese head of state. The Chinese president emphasized that globalization should not be blamed for the lackluster performance of the global economy.

Hope That Trump Will Be the Peace President That Obama Was Not

With Donald Trump set to become president tomorrow, many proponents of the US government refraining from intervening in other countries have their fingers crossed, hoping that a Trump administration will bring an improved US foreign policy. In particular, there is hope that Trump’s statements that he wants the US and Russia to have friendlier relations will mean the Trump administration will work to reverse the much increased tensions of the last few years between the nations — tensions characterized by harsh words, sanctions, and military deployments.

Gerald Celente – Even Trump Said This Grand Experiment Will End Badly

Today the top trends forecaster in the world spoke with King World News about 2017 and why even Trump said the Grand Experiment will end badly. Eric King: “Gerald, you are keenly aware of the massive debt levels and the market bubbles, how do you square that with a positive future for the United States going forward when we are in the midst of the greatest monetary experiment in history that you and I both know is destined to end badly?” Gerald Celente: “Even Trump said it would end badly. He kept saying that during his campaign. And there may be a sharp downturn in the stock market. There’s no question about it. However, when you look at what’s going on in the rest of the world, the United States is in much better shape. But we are talking about a global slowdown. So just because the United States may do better, that doesn’t mean the rest of the world will.

Obama’s Wasted, Deadly, and Destructive Presidency

Eight years ago, President Obama’s administration started with hope and change. Eight years later, we end up with a legacy of nothing but waste, death, and destruction. Libertarians never had any hope, of course, that Barack Obama would dismantle any aspect of the welfare state. As a died-in-the-wool liberal, his commitment to socialism, regulation, and economic interventionism is unwavering. When, for example, he addressed the healthcare crisis brought on my Medicare, Medicaid, regulation, and interventionism by foisting Obamacare onto the American people, we libertarians were not surprised. Where libertarians (and lots of liberals) had hope was that Obama would change the direction that the George W. Bush administration had set for America with respect to foreign policy and civil liberties.

Dimon Says Euro Zone May Not Survive If Concerns Are Ignored

The euro region could break up if political leaders don’t get to grips with the discontent that’s spurring support for populist leaders across the continent, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said. Dimon said he had hoped European Union leaders would examine what caused the U.K. to vote to leave and then make changes. That hasn’t happened, and if nationalist politicians including France’s Marine Le Pen rise to power in elections across the region “the euro zone may not survive,” Dimon, 60, said in a Bloomberg Television interview with John Micklethwait.

Physical Will Trump Paper Gold

Gold rose 8.5% for the year while gold-mining stocks (XAU – Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index stocks) rose 75%. On an annual basis, results were highly satisfactory. However, there was considerable drama beneath the surface that left precious metals investors in a state of anxiety by year-end. Precious metals and mining shares rose sharply through August, and then spent the rest of the year giving back much of the first-half gains. The second half downtrend accelerated into early December, following the unexpected victory by Trump and a hawkish statement after the December Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.

Keiser Report: Health Care Plan for Trump Voters

We discuss the health care plan that Trump voters really want… and it’s not the one the Republicans in Congress plan on delivering. In the second half, Max interviews Obi Egbuna, the first US Correspondent to the Herald – Zimbabwe’s National Newspaper – and Co- Executive Producer of the BattleCry For Cuba and Zimbabwe. They discuss the embargo on Cuba and the sanctions on Zimbabwe and why he’s calling for a complete end to them.

Here’s how much debt the US government added under President Obama

As part of the broader economic legacy of President Barack Obama, from jobs to the stock market, one of the most notable changes has been the increase in the national debt. Based on quarterly data released by the US Treasury, the debt at the end of 2008 — just before Obama took office — stood at roughly $10,699,805,000,000. As of the third quarter of 2016, the most recent data available, the debt as Obama is set to leave office stood at $19,573,445,000,000. Based on the website USdebtclock.com, which extrapolates the US national debt in real time based on committed government spending, the debt will be roughly $19.97 trillion when President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Friday.

Will Our Grandchildren Wonder Why We Didn’t Build a Renewable Power Grid When It Was Still Affordable?

Anyone seeking clarity on the energy picture a decade or two out is to be forgiven for finding a thoroughly confusing divide. On the one hand, we have reassuring projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) that assume current production of fossil fuels will remain steady for decades to come. Coal will continue to decline as a share of total energy consumption, and renewables will rise modestly. In other words, everything’s hunky-dory, there’s nothing to worry about.

America Has Spoken Now what can they expect from “Trumponomics”?

Donald J. Trump was officially inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. In fairness, this is a happenstance that few in the world thought they would ever see. That is, of course, except for the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for the billionaire real estate developer and entrepreneur. So, what can we expect from the new President’s economic policies and how might they benefit investors who own physical gold? During the Presidential campaign Mr. Trump offered that his policies would create 25 million jobs by revising the tax code, reducing government regulation, changing US trade policy, focusing on American energy, and cutting government spending (Source: Trump Campaign website). Let’s look at each of these.

Donald Trump’s full inauguration speech transcript, annotated

The president of the United States is now Donald Trump, who just took the oath of office and, shortly thereafter, delivered his inaugural address.

Donald Trump’s inaugural address: Full text as prepared for delivery

Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans, and people of the world: thank you. We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people. Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come. We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done. Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent.

Donald Trump Inauguration: A Day of Ceremony, Protests and Celebration

President Trump’s era on the government web began almost immediately with the wiping out of Obama-era initiatives and a new brand of policy pronouncement. But two sides can play that game. As Mr. Trump dined with dignitaries and members of Congress in the Capitol, the police skirmished with protesters, hurling flash-bang grenades to drive them from the inauguration parade route. Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote by nearly three million but lost the presidency, was on hand for her former rival’s swearing-in at the Capitol.

Stock Market Genius Gives Market Predictions For 2017

How should people know they cannot trust the U.S. mainstream media when it comes to giving accurate information about the dire state of the U.S. economy? For starters, look at how dishonest the media was while covering the U.S. presidential election, and everything having to do with politics since. Next, consider the fact that one of nation’s highest end retailers, Nordstrom’s, sold out nationally this past Christmas on one of their red hot new items: An $85 Pet Rock that came with matching leather pants. Americans were so clueless about the actual state of the economy, they caused a national retailer to sell out of “pet rocks.” Is there any better way to demonstrate a total lack of valuable information?

End of 2017 Gold Up & Dollar Down

Best-selling author Nomi Prins says two of the big wild cards are Donald Trump and Europe. Prins explains, “The biggest wild card is a combination. Trump is a wild card, but so is Europe. Right now, the political lens goes over to Europe. It’s caught between its old and potentially new structure and potential new political leadership. I think that is a major wild card now. That snakes through Russia, and that snakes through Eurasia relationships, and that relates back to Trump. The wild card is the linkages among those things.” Prins, who is a former top Wall Street banker, also thinks it’s hard to define the bad guys and the good guys. Prins contends, “From an economic standpoint, everyone has side deals. So, there is no positive or negative economy. . . . All countries do good things, and all countries do bad things. What is happening right now is all of the alignments between countries have been changing. . . . The reality is there are going to be a lot of things renegotiated, and it’s not just Trump and the U.S. doing the renegotiating. All the other countries are negotiating as well. If there is enough antagonism with how Trump is going to renegotiate those agreements . . . that could limit trade into the U.S., and that could limit our bargaining power. . . . That is all in flux this year.”

Theresa May To Call For “Clean And Hard Brexit” As UK Warns Of “Market Correction”

While the track record of the Sunday Times over the past 24 hours is somewhat spotty, following a report that as his foreign trip abroad once officially president, Trump is planning a summit with Putin in Reykjavik, which in turn was promptly denied by Trump staffers who called the story “fantasy”, overnight the paper also reported that UK Prime Minister Theresa May will announce that Britain is “seeking a clean and hard Brexit” in a speech this week that will promise to create a “strong new partnership” with the European Union. The paper further notes that in the speech, scheduled for Tuesday, the PM will “finally lay her cards on the table”, making clear that the UK is set to pull out of the single market and the European customs union in return for the ability to curb immigration, strike commercial deals with other countries, and escape the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, the Sunday Times said without saying how it obtained the information.

GEORGE SOROS: Trump is a con man and he will fail

Billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros on Thursday reiterated his belief that President-elect Donald Trump is “an imposter and con man and a would-be dictator.” Soros, 86, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he is convinced the president-elect will fail. “He stands for that other form of government, which is the opposite of an open society,” said Soros, who is a Holocaust survivor and Hungarian immigrant. “It’s really better described as a dictatorship or a mafia state.” Soros said Trump “would be a dictator if he could get away with it,” but that US institutions are strong enough to prevent that scenario. He also said the ideas that guide Trump are “inherently self-contradictory” and that those contradictions are “embodied by his advisers.”

Why Is Obama Moving Troops Into Poland And Provoking A War With Russia Right Before The Inauguration?

January 20th cannot come soon enough. Instead of stepping back and trying to ensure a smooth transition for Donald Trump, Barack Obama has decided to go hog wild and use every ounce of presidential power still available to him. He has been establishing a bunch of new national monuments, he just stabbed Israel in the back at the United Nations, and on Thursday he even took time to give Joe Biden a Presidential Medal of Freedom. But one of the things that has people the most concerned is his endless provoking of Russia. Every few days it seems like Obama is doing something else to aggravate Russia, and if he wasn’t leaving office in about a week I am sure that the mainstream media would be full of speculation about a possible war. Lame duck presidents are not supposed to make risky moves like this once a new president has been elected. On Thursday, we learned that U.S. troops have been permanently deployed to Poland for the very first time…

Alibaba’a Jack Ma Drops a Redpill in Davos: The U.S. Wasted $14 Trillion on Wars Over the Past 30 Years

And there it is, the unvarnished, raw, truth about how everything went wrong for middle class America. Since the Vietnam war, more than 45 years ago, the US has embarked on a neocon strategy of war in an effort to build a global empire. The result of that strategy has left American infrastructure second rate, its school system in shambles, and its healthcare system a complete and utter joke. Just imagine what America could’ve done with $14t of investable dollars, instead of waging wars. Aside from the wars, America spends more than 50% of its discretionary budget on the military, per annum, 16% of its overall budget.

Why Has The White House Suddenly Released A Strategy For Dealing With The Threat Of A Catastrophic Meteor Impact?

Does the White House know something that the rest of us do not? As the Obama administration draws to a close, the White House has suddenly released a major document that details a multi-pronged strategy for dealing with the threat of a catastrophic meteor impact. Most of us remember movies such as “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon” that attempted to depict what such a crisis would look like, but up until fairly recently the U.S. government has never seemed to take this kind of threat very seriously. So what has changed? Of all the things that the White House could be focusing on, why this?